Wednesday, July 20, 2011

the Things you learn from your friends....

Its amazing what you learn from your friends ... or because of your friends.Here's how it happened. Today - I met with a food historian at work to plan for an event featuring THE COOKBOOK. As we were browsing the book I found so many recipes I still want to try. (By the way, the menu for the event is: meatballs, sweet potato pudding, macaroons, cottage pudding, and currant shrub.) We were trying to come up with a vegetable (because I insisted) and I thought - oh, hey, there is a pickle section. So I went through it and found the recipe for "nasturians" [sic]. I asked - does she mean the flowers? Yes.Well... actually no. I came home and started googling. It's amazing what you can find on the internet. "How to pickle nasturtiums" and all of the results included the word "buds". "How to pickle Nasturtium buds". It also included the phrase, Poor Man's Capers.Huh. Capers... interestingly enough capers came up in a conversation this past weekend with Melanie. Where do capers come from? A bush. Well not quite. Turns out, if you google "capers" you get a very interesting story. I found this info on Wikipedia - a completely reliable source (I know Daddy.) But yeah, now I want a caper bush. It has pretty flowers. Are there Caper farms? Seriously! So what I learned from my conversation with my friends is what a caper really is. Thanks Meli! And - turns out - Pickled Nasturtiums doesn't mean the flowers - it means the buds.In other news - I harvested my very first beet. I'm going to use Ellen Emlen's recipe for the roots. I'll cook the greens in garlic. yum.

About Me

i am a 42 year old ~ native californian ~ pronounce my name tar-a, not terra ~ moved to Philadelphia to go to grad school ~ ride my bike to work ~ am an artist, teacher, and book conservator ~ two cats Jacques and Swee'pea who will make many appearances I'm sure